Causes of & Support Options for Teen Mistrust of Adults
Has your once-open teenager built walls between themselves and the adults in their life?
Some skepticism toward adults from teens is totally normal. They often question rules and challenge perspectives as they work toward establishing independence from their parents. But a staunch refusal to trust adults can limit their opportunities to receive guidance and access support.
Mistrust of adults in teens isn’t always a case of rebelling or disrespect for authority figures. It can also be a protective response to experiences they’ve had that taught them adults can’t be trusted. This reaction might also be a sign of underlying trauma, anxiety, or stress.
If you’re concerned that signs of mistrust could signal a deeper issue, a mental health professional can provide guidance and support. This page can also help you better understand the mistrust of adults teens can experience, as it discusses:
- Common teen behavioral concerns that may indicate trust issues
- The impact of stress and mental health concerns
- Relationship issues youth can develop with authority figures
- An overview of the support options for teenagers struggling with trust and dual diagnosis issues
- Where to find professional support
- Answers to FAQs on teen mistrust of adults
The Signs of Trust Issues in Teenagers
Teen behavioral concerns that signal an underlying mistrust of adults can often present in patterns that parents sometimes interpret as “defiant” or “disrespectful.” Refusing to accept help with anything, testing behaviors, and extreme secrecy can stem from several different causes.
To reiterate, some challenges with authority and mistrust of adults are very common for teenagers. However, sometimes these behaviors can be driven by deeper concerns. For example, refusing to accept help with anything can indicate a belief that adults can’t support them genuinely.
Similarly, using testing behaviors that seem designed to provoke a reaction can indicate that your teenager expects adults to abandon or hurt them, so they orchestrate rejection on their terms instead.
Plus, extreme secrecy – beyond the normal level of privacy desired by most teenagers – suggests that they might fear sharing information that adults might use to harm them. Hiding their struggles, problems, activities, and future plans could mean they’re concerned that this information could be used as leverage against them. So controlling what they share feels safer than being transparent.
How Struggling With Mental Health Can Impact Trust in Adults
For example, anxiety disorders can create hyper-awareness of threats, both real and perceived. Teenagers with generalized anxiety disorder or social anxiety often constantly scan their environments for danger, interpreting interactions as threatening. This can make every adult interaction feel harmful, causing defensive mistrust to protect themselves.1
Further, social anxiety could specifically increase the fear that adults are judging adolescents negatively. So your child might avoid seeking help from teachers, resist therapy, or withdraw from coaches because they’re convinced others view them as inadequate.2
Other mental health challenges that could bring about a sense of mistrust in adults for teenagers can include:3
Depression: Depression can create a wide array of cognitive distortions, causing teens to view themselves as a “burden” or “unworthy” of help. Depression tries to convince teens that no one really cares, making trust feel far out of reach.
- Trauma: Trauma’s impact on trust for youth can fundamentally damage the neurological systems that govern safety. Teenagers who’ve experienced trauma, particularly trauma involving adults and abuse, neglect, or betrayal, can send their threat detection into overdrive and lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Attachment issues: We’re all shaped in some way by our early childhood experiences, but teens who’ve experienced adverse circumstances in their early years can have a very hard time trusting adults. In other words, teens who’ve gone through parental instability, poverty, foster placements, or neglect often find it difficult to place their trust in authority figures.
- Paranoid thinking: Paranoid thinking, from either emerging personality patterns or psychotic symptoms, can create genuine beliefs that adults are conspiring against teenagers, which can make trusting them extremely difficult.
How Mistrust Damages Relationships
Relationship issues that youth develop with authority figures can create problems across nearly every domain in their lives. The inability to form functional relationships with teachers, coaches, counselors, parents, and other trusted adults can limit your child’s access to resources that are vital for healthy development.
In the school setting, teachers can’t effectively support students who view them as adversaries. Your child might refuse to ask any follow-up questions and see feedback as a personal attack, causing poor grades and a lack of willingness to participate.
Likewise, coaching and mentoring relationships that help to build skills and confidence may quickly become strained when your teen can’t accept guidance without suspecting ulterior motives. This could lead them to quit activities they once enjoyed or create conflicts that lead to their removal from activities that would otherwise be beneficial.
The breakdown of a counseling relationship can be a unique challenge, as mental health professionals can’t help clients who won’t engage authentically. Your teenager might attend sessions in protest and provide surface-level responses or even terminate sessions entirely, preventing the engagement that’s required to make things better.
Of course, parent-teen relationships can bear the heaviest burden of mistrust. If you’re being treated as a threat, it can be incredibly difficult to connect, leading to power struggles that can take over the family dynamic.
How Parents Could Unintentionally Damage Trust With Their Teenager
Even well-meaning parents sometimes engage in patterns that erode trust, perhaps making teens become more guarded and suspicious of their true intentions. Some harmful parenting practices could include:
- Using vulnerabilities as ammunition: Bringing up a teen’s past struggles and mistakes during an argument weaponizes the trust a teen showed when bringing issues up in the first place.
- Invalidating their emotions: Telling teens they’re overreacting or being too sensitive shows them their internal experiences don’t matter.
- Showing inconsistent follow-through: A parent repeatedly making promises they don’t keep can teach a child that these words don’t mean anything.
- Being conditional in giving love and affection: The withdrawal of approval when a child disappoints can show them that their performance is the only thing that matters.
- Invading privacy: Seeking out opportunities to snoop on a teen can damage their sense of trust over such breaches of privacy.
- Failing to admit personal mistakes: Parents never acknowledging when they’re wrong or overreacting to making a poor decision can seem like avoiding responsibility, perhaps causing a teen to question their integrity.
Support Options for Teenagers Struggling With Trust Issues
Teenagers who find trust issues a challenge might need specialized help to address their mental health and behavioral issues. Treatment programs designed for adolescents know that these young people need safe, supportive places to rebuild their sense of safety and connect with others who understand their difficulties. We cover aspects of the treatment process in the following sections.
Comprehensive Treatment Modalities
Evidence-based therapeutic approaches are a critical part of treatment for teens with trust and mental health concerns. For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy helps adolescents identify and reshape unhelpful, negative thought patterns that can contribute to trust issues and other problems.
Additionally, several evidence-based approaches, including narrative and psychodynamic approaches to therapy, can teach teens to recognize how their thoughts influence their behaviors and emotions, giving them practical tools to change.
Family Involvement
The family unit is always an important part of the recovery process. Family therapy sessions work to improve your communication patterns together, resolving conflicts in a more effective way, and strengthening relationships in the process.
Establishing healthy routines and learning how to give support during tough moments can make all the difference. And caring treatment providers can help your family learn new skills to apply in everyday life.
Building Life Skills
Treatment that addresses trust issues also involves educational support, making sure that teens are able to maintain their academic progress during and after treatment. Life skills development also teaches new coping mechanisms and problem-solving strategies they’ll need as they transition back home.
Levels of Care
There are several unique levels of care designed to meet a wide array of treatment needs. Residential treatment provides comprehensive care for teenagers managing complex issues, removing them from potentially triggering situations and allowing them to focus wholly on the recovery process.
Residential programs integrate several therapeutic approaches throughout each day, including individual therapy, family sessions, group therapy, and more. For teens who have struggled to make progress in other settings, inpatient treatment offers an overarching level of support for meaningful change.
How Mission Prep Can Help You and Your Teen Heal
If your child is struggling with mistrust, Mission Prep can help. Our licensed team of trained professionals offers whole-person, holistic mental health treatment services designed to give teens the intensive support and resources they need to build lasting resilience.
Contact us today to speak with an admissions rep to verify your insurance benefits and find out how we can support your family’s journey.
Frequently Asked Questions About Teenage Mistrust of Adults
If your teen has a mistrust of adults, it’s natural to have some ongoing concerns. For this reason, we’ve provided some responses to FAQs about the mistrust of adults teens can face.
How Can Mistrust Affect a Teen’s Mental Health?
Teenagers who can’t trust authority figures may find forming healthy relationships or seeking help when they need it a challenge. Further, isolation can worsen any existing mental health disorders they may be dealing with. In other words, the inability to trust can create a cycle where teens push away the support they need, leading to increased depression, anxiety, and hopelessness.
How Can Parents Help With Building Trust in Teens?
Consistency is truly key. Following through on your promises, maintaining stable routines, and responding calmly to challenges can all help over time.
Parents should also do their best to validate their child’s feelings without becoming defensive, acknowledging past hurts honestly. Creating opportunities for positive interactions without pressure can allow teens to engage more naturally and confidently.
Additionally, professional help is always recommended when trauma or other mental health concerns have complicated the trust-building process. Trained clinicians can help you and your child process past experiences and learn new skills for moving forward.
References
- Chiu, A., Falk, A., & Walkup, J. T. (2016). Anxiety Disorders Among Children and Adolescents. FOCUS, 14(1), 26–33. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20150029
- Ryan, J. L., & Warner, C. M. (2012). Treating Adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder in Schools. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 21(1), 105–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chc.2011.08.011
- Paauw, C., de Roos, C., Tummers, J., de Jongh, A., & Dingemans, A. (2019). Effectiveness of trauma-focused treatment for adolescents with major depressive disorder. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 10(1), 1682931. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2019.1682931
